Emergency services personnel and average citizens have access to a wide breadth of information relating to possible dangerous situations in their vicinity. However, the dissemination of this information is often a slow, manual, and unreliable process which puts lives at risk. In the event of an incident, emergency services personal must analyze each individual report which makes it difficult to execute time critical actions. Likewise, individuals often find it problematic to relay and receive information related to a given incident due to the highly fragmented means of communication at their disposal.
Effective communication is the single most important factor when dealing with an emergency event, and in particular, a mass casualty event. The key to effective communication in such a situation is to obtain up to date and accurate information and thereby obtain situational awareness. The sheer volume of information coming in from a myriad of sources can be overwhelming to even the best-trained personnel from the law enforcement community.
In addition, effective communication is important when dealing with other types of non-emergency public incidents as well, such as events held in public areas like concerts, traffic congestion, protests, or flash mobs.
Accordingly, improvements in communication and dissemination of information relating to public incidents in general, and emergency incidents in particular, are desirable.